some advice needed (V)

lvfcs

New member
I was reading other posts, and was impressed by how many similarities there are in people's experiences. Some sound so familiar, you are left wondering if it's not your own story. :) I'm new to this and, like any newbie, I'm scared of making mistakes that would hurt those I care for.

What brings me looking for advice is my difficulties with handling how our relationship is now. My boyfriend and wife have been together many years. They started with this because of me. But he and I betrayed her trust at the beginning on a single occasion. We all have passed through many situations since then, and have found understanding and forgiveness, but I think that's something that will haunt me always.

Right now, I feel like I cannot complain about how it makes me feel that all the times we are together, she has to be part of it, while they get to have time for only them. We try to communicate all the time, but I feel like I have no real say in the matter.

I feel very deeply for him, but I can not help having doubts. Perhaps it's just that I'm not cut out for this sort of relationship?

Any advice would be very welcome.

Thanks,
Lory
 
Welcome lvfcs,

It doesn't seem fair that you and he don't get any quality time alone, when you say you've all put the one act of betrayal behind you.

Are you in a triad (the three of you have a relationship together) or a V (he has a separate relationship with each of you)? Do you spend time alone with her? Have you tried speaking to her about this one on one?

If you are not getting what you need from this relationship, it seems more like you're being used to enhance what they have, rather than being treated as a separate person, with needs and desires of your own. You're being almost forced into the "unicorn" role to be with him, when you may not wish to be their unicorn.
 
Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Right now I feel like I cannot complain about how it makes me feel.
Why do you feel you do not have a right to be heard? You may be the newest member of the V, but you didn't cede your rights as a feeling, thinking individual when you became involved with them, did you? You count too. If they love you, they respect you and value your happiness and well-being.

As for past hurts and betrayals: forgiveness frees all parties involved. Learn from the experience, resolve to do better in the future, and give yourself permission to grow past it. If you and he betrayed her trust, you cannot change that. But it sounds like that's not all the history you have together. Have the choices you've made since that time sought to heal what was damaged and regain what was lost? If so, look at the bigger picture and give yourself credit where credit is due.

I have no real say in the matter.
You have a right to have a real say in every matter that affects your life, unless and until you give up that right. In fact, as an adult you have the final say over your life. You also have a right to be respected as a person, and to expect that your thoughts and feelings will be respected, too.

I feel very deeply for him, but I can not help having doubts.
What are your feelings for her? What are your feelings about the whole situation?

It sounds as if perhaps you're putting up with being treated as "less than" for the sake of your feelings for him. If that's the case, only you can change things. And you do that by:
1) Deciding what you really want
2) Making a plan to get it
3) Putting your plan into action

I know it sounds pretty simple, but in many cases, I've learned the hardest part is actually deciding what I really want.

Best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do.
 
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Are you in a triad (the three of you have a relationship together) or a V (he has a separate relationship with each of you)? Do you spend time alone with her? Have you tried speaking to her about this one on one?

Thank you, XYZ. I'm in a V, only it is not as separate as it might be. I'm heterosexual, so even if sexual encounters (and any other kind) are with all parties present, there's no interaction between her and me. That's something she has requested to agree to start a poly relationship. So, even if it is unfair to me, I am supposed to accept it, because it's a requisite to begin with. I'm not sure how the boundaries work here.

I have not tried to broach the subject with her, because I'm not sure if I'm trying to rush her into accepting things she does not feel ready for, or afraid she might call a halt to it, and I would lose him for good.


You're being almost forced into the "unicorn" role to be with him, when you may not wish to be their unicorn.

I honestly do not want to be anyone's unicorn, no matter my feelings for him.

Your insight on how it might look from the outside has helped me a lot! The difficulty about beginning to do polyamory is to define what's right and wrong, and what's normal or not.
 
I'm going to be a judgmental ass right now, but I couldn't help reading between the lines, so here I go:

Does this man have anything to say all by himself? Judging from what you DON'T say, as opposed to what you DID choose to say, *I* would have to say that your boyfriend needs to grow a backbone and participate mentally as an adult in this, and stop putting you and the other lady in the awkward position of competing for his attention. I will go out on a limb and suggest that he enjoys this on some levels.

That's enough non-sugar-coated commentary from me for now.
 
Thank you, Fidelia. Your words have me reflecting on how I've been acting, and why I've been keeping it all inside.

You are right, the hardest part is to decide what it is that I actually want. I'm still debating this with myself.

What are your feelings for her? What are your feelings about the whole situation?
Between her and me there's a growing friendship. I care for her, and do not want to jeopardize this balance by pushing and demanding.

It sounds as if perhaps you're putting up with being treated as "less than" for the sake of your feelings for him.

Perhaps this is just me, and it's a misconception of how it really is, but being the new one makes me feel as if my relationships with them are not equal. They are the ones that have years and history together, the married ones that had to agreed to open their marriage. She calls the shots when it comes to how much he and I can do. Is this something every new party has to accept, or do I have it all wrong?
 
She calls the shots when it comes to how much he and I can do. Is this something every new party has to accept, or do I have it all wrong?

I'll be honest with you, as a married woman, if we opened up to a level where my gf (I am bisexual and was the one at the center of the V) were to be sexually involved with my husband, I'd want to call the shots, too. BUT, I wouldn't want to do it in a way that made her feel "less than." There would have to be a sit down with the three of us to discuss everyone's comfort level. She wouldn't be left out of the communication and then simply have the rules dictated to her later. As a V, we did this often, and her voice was heard and our boundaries as a couple were redefined.

You are an individual with just as many rights and emotions as the two of them. You have a right to know why the rules are in place, express your feelings and thoughts about them, and ask for what you need. You all need to communicate together for this to work.
 
You are an individual with just as many rights and emotions as the two of them. You have a right to know why the rules are in place, express your feelings on them, and ask for what you need. You all need to communicate together for this to work.

Hear, hear, XYZ. I couldn't agree more!

If any of their rules aren't working for you, LV, you have a right to discuss them, renegotiate the agreements, and/or decide for yourself what you want to do about it.
 
The essence of what I want to say here is that polyamory is probably not going to be workable between people who treat others as scarce resources in need of resource-allocation protocols. Polyamory is centrally about love, and loving people means treating them very, very well, as best as we can. And hoarding time or love, or people, as a scarce-resource acquisition procedure is utterly absurd. People who are involved in such a dynamic need to wake up and get out of it.

If some partner, spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend just doesn't get it and has a tendency to hoard seemingly scarce love/time/whatever within a supposedly polyamorous (multiple-loving) situation, they clearly don't know how to dance the polyamory dance, and no amount of rule making and posting the rules on the walls will sort out that mess.

Basically, love and be loved, and stay away from those who will turn "love" into a cage, or a treasure to protect in a bank vault. Alternatively, you can hope that the treasure-keeper will change their ways. But I'd put a time limit on how much time is worthy of devotion to this hope.
 
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My boyfriend and wife have been together many years.

I had to read this several/many times before I realized that you don't have a boyfriend and a wife, but that your boyfriend has a wife.

Perhaps saying "my boyfriend and his wife" would make it more clear?
 
Thank you all!

I really love you all right now. :) I was reluctant at the beginning to post, but the support is unbelievable. I will try to get them to read some other posts, because each of us have to deal with different issues, and seeing how other people deal with their own issues gives you a bigger picture.

Sometimes you just need someone from the outside to tell you how it looks. Trying to solve it all on your own does not always work.

We all got to talk, express fears, desires, give support and understanding, and show that we all want the same at the end, but are only afraid. It was not a nice talk, by far, but it it's helping us grow.

It's still the beginning, and there's still a long way ahead, but I would have been silently keeping it all inside if not for you all.

Now I have a new question. How to deal with shared times? Do schedules work, or do they take away spontaneity?
 
Sure JRiver! ...my boyfriend and his wife... is way more clear! :) i forgot the multiple possibilties on polyamory, won't happen again :)
 
Now I have a new question. How to deal with shared times? Do schedules work, or do they take away spontaneity?

The ideal situation, as I see it, is where there seldom arises a need for scheduling togetherness time specifically in order to insure that all members of a couple, triad, throuple, V, or whatever, feel loved and appreciated and tended to. And I'm convinced that where there is genuine and equal shared love in a grouping, everything should fall together pretty unproblematically, easily, in this regard.

I'm a part of a couple at the moment, and, of course, Kevin and I do schedule activities: massages, camping, hiking, with one another. But I know that he very much likes to spend time with me, and he knows that I very much like to spend time with him. So if he schedules a hike with a friend, I don't worry that he likes the friend more than me, or prefers time with that friend to time with me. And that's pretty much how it would be if we were a in "V", a triad, or some other configuration.

Let's say that Kevin meets someone else, forms a lover-ly relationship with them, and they are spending a lot of time with one another. If that brings him joy, then I get to enjoy his joy, which enhances my capacity for joy. If ever I were to feel "left out" or neglected, that's when I'd have to examine whether I am in fact being left out or neglected, or rather only having some "button" pushed, some trigger of an unhealed past hurt, maybe.

But I'm pretty sure that if Kevin had another lover-ly partner, I'd like that person a lot, and would trust them, and would feel as if I could talk with them about my experience of feeling neglected or left out. I could also talk with Kevin about it. And I'm pretty sure we'd work it out, somehow, so that everyone felt cared for and attended to. That's trust. I trust Kevin not to suddenly abandon me or run off and leave me in the dust. He trusts me in this way. So things pretty much go easily, whether or not either of us has another partner. (We've had some brief experience of this with others.)

So I think that the real issues are seldom about quantities of time shared, per se. What Kevin and I have, which is crucial, is the KNOWLEDGE that we love one another. That knowledge brings a depth of trust that allows us to see things in a different light than would be available without this KNOWLEDGE. Of course, like most people, we've both had our trust shaken to its knees by others whom we've trusted similarly. So, of course, we have the residue of that as part of the mix. But the KNOWLEDGE of our mutual love is larger in most moments of most days than the FEAR of re-injury (neglect, loss of love, abandonment, etc.).

Now, this KNOWLEDGE is rooted in fact, not fantasy or wish. Those for whom this is not a fact cannot hope to come to this knowledge (not fantasy), and so cannot come to this kind of trust and what it allows. It allows us to love others without fear of abandonment, neglect, being left in the dust.
 
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